The Corporate Power

Americans are increasingly aware that corporations aren’t working the way they should. Roosevelt Senior Economist Lenore Palladino explains: “Today’s corporations have retained their privileges and lost their public purpose. Corporate power should not [surpass] people power.”

In a truly competitive economy, rules incentivize corporate behavior that promotes shared prosperity, including investments in better products, higher pay, and long-term business growth. Today, however, the links between profit and prosperity are broken.

Sky-high stock buyback spending, unchecked corporate consolidation, and rampant monopoly power are some of the symptoms—and causes—of the structural imbalances within and across firms. And Americans feel it in their daily lives: limited savings, unaffordable health care, fewer opportunities for upward mobility.

Now is the time to rewrite the rules that guide how our corporations function and who they benefit.